In typical retail environments, it is generally difficult to visually determine the amount of inventory on a shelf. This is often due to item(s)/product on the shelf being pushed towards a front and/or a front portion of the shelf (e.g., towards the aisle in a retail environment). Typically, it is time-consuming to manually assess inventory (e.g., inventory counts, stock determinations, product depth etc.) in these environments and known methods involving automated inventory determinations may require specialized equipment and/or components, which often require significant capital expenditures and/or operating costs (e.g., expenses associated with operating automated inventory systems, service and/or maintenance expenses, etc.).
Some known inventory systems rely on sensors that are integrated with a shelf to determine product depth and/or utilize backers that push inventory. In particular, the known inventory systems may transmit signals towards the positional backers and the sensors may determine positional information from the positional backers via reflections of the transmitted signals to determine inventory information about products stored on these shelving systems. These systems often require a significant number of parts including, for example, the positional backers, detecting equipment, wiring and/or a networking infrastructure to collect, sort and/or compile the inventory information/data. As a result, these systems may also require significant set-up time to align and/or calibrate the detecting equipment.
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